Yours (7 page)

“You—”

He shoved me back through the doorway so hard that I didn’t have any time to cry out. I tumbled out into the alley, catching myself on the rough asphalt with my hands. My palms scraped and a burning pain shot through my arm. I heard the alleyway door slam behind us.

What the hell!?

The blond man yanked me to my feet, pulling me up by the arm as though I weighed nothing. I opened my mouth to scream, but I only got out a yelp before his hand was over my mouth. I struggled, kicking hard, but he held me tight against his chest. One of the other guards came forward and clasped a collar around my neck. A collar?! I kicked out again and got the guard in the shin. But the black leather collar was still tight around my neck.

“You didn’t drug her.”

The voice came from behind us, and when the blond man turned with me in his arms, I saw who had spoken. The fat guy from upstairs, the one with the mustache.

“I didn’t have time. She was heading out here anyway.”

Then my eyes refocused, and I saw April and James. They were both on their knees, gags tied around their mouths, with two of the men in black standing behind them. The men—
Oh God.
The men had guns tucked into their belts. I hadn’t noticed before.

Behind them, there were two black SUVs parked up against the curb, blocking the alleyway.

April was sobbing silently. Her mascara ran down onto the cloth gag and there was a collar around her throat just like mine. James looked up at me with fear in his eyes. There was a huge bruise on the side of his face. My throat constricted.

Jesus. They’re going to kidnap us.
All of the stories I’d heard about Americans getting kidnapped and held for ransom came flooding back into my mind. Stories about fingers getting chopped off and sent back as a warning. All of a sudden, I was completely sober.

The fat man stepped in front of me. I wriggled backwards, but the blond man holding me was way too strong for me to even think about getting loose. Then the fat man reached a hand out and stroked my chin. I gulped as his fingers ran down my throat, down past my collarbone.

When he yanked the top of my dress down, I moaned into the hand that was gagging me and pushed away, but there was nowhere to go. He squeezed my tit so hard it hurt.

“Good choice,” he said, nodding with a smile that made my bones turn to ice. “Gag her.”

That was it. I wasn’t going to get taken that easily. I bit down hard on the blond man’s hand. My teeth sunk into his palm and he shouted, pulling his hand away. His grip loosened just enough for me to send one good kick to his knee. He dropped me. I jumped sideways, a scream halfway out of my throat, before he caught me again. This time one of the other men stuffed a handful of fabric into my mouth and tied a gag around the back of my head. I kicked, but the blond man only held me tighter.

“What about those two?” the blond man asked, as he held me back from running. He was talking about April and James. April was still sobbing.

“Take the girl.”

The other men in black suits pulled April to her feet. She started screaming from behind her gag, hoarse muffled screams. How long had they been out here? I met her eyes for only a second. Then the men opened up the back of one of the black SUVs and shoved her inside, slamming the door behind her.

James struggled, but his hands were tied behind his back and there were two men on either side of him holding him down by the shoulders. He couldn’t do anything. My heart pounded faster.

“And this one?”

The fat man with the mustache glanced down. James went white as the man stood over him with no trace of mercy.

“Kill him.”

Chapter Thirteen

Vale

“Kill him.”

One of El Alfa’s henchmen stepped forward, his hand already on his gun. Jessica wrenched back in my arms, trying desperately to twist out of my grasp. It wouldn’t do any good. I wasn’t about to let her go. But she didn’t have to see this. I pushed her toward the SUV that we’d come in. She screamed from behind the gag, her eyes wide as she craned her head to see the boy. I shut the door behind her quickly, but she pressed her face up against the window, still trying to make herself heard from behind the gag.

I turned, standing in front of her view. The henchman had taken the gun from his holster and was stepping toward the boy.

What shitty luck. He should have let his girlfriend go outside alone to puke. If he hadn’t been with her, he wouldn’t be dead. My mind kept cycling excuses, trying to keep calm. In control.

I clasped my hands loosely in front of me. Any pity I felt for him was locked down so deeply that I couldn’t even feel it, not really. My face was smooth, I knew, smooth and controlled. If El Alfa wanted to see how I reacted to a murder, he would be sorely disappointed.

But, as it turned out, he wanted to see more from me.

“Wait.”

All of the men looked up at El Alfa’s words. He reached out and took the gun from his henchman’s hand.

“But—”

“Hush,” El Alfa said to the man. The man looked up at him with a scowl on his face, like he was a child that had just been reprimanded, but that expression quickly disappeared. El Alfa hefted the gun in his hand.

Then he held it out to me.

My eyes flicked from the gun to his face. He didn’t mean—

“You are new here,” El Alfa said, his voice rasping over my nerves. “Take it.”

My jaw started to clench, but I forced myself to relax. I held out my hand and El Alfa set the gun down on my open palm. I wrapped my hand around the gun, my finger stroking the side of the trigger. As I hefted it, El Alfa gripped my wrist. His palm was hot and sweaty but the grip was an iron vise.

“You have killed before?” he asked me.

I forced myself to look at him levelly, even as my heart sank. He wouldn’t make me do this. He couldn’t. And yet as I stood there, the metal of the gun warming in my hand, I knew that he was capable of this, this and so much more. His tongue darted out, small and pink beneath his oily black mustache.

“Yes,” I said.

“Good,” he said. He let go of my hand. The place where he had gripped me went cool. “Then this is a good chance for you to show me what you know.”

What I knew? My mind reeled forward all of my training. How to kill someone with a rope, a knife, a gun. I knew all of the body parts that hurt most to be shot. If you want information, you break someone’s finger or shoot them in the knee. Avoid the femoral artery, or they’ll die too quickly. If you want someone to die slow, you shoot them in the stomach. If you want them to die fast—

“
Mmmmm!
”

The kid on the ground was past scared. The front of his pants had gone dark with urine, and his chest was shuddering with silent sobs behind his gag. He was young. Jesus, so young. Twenty, twenty-two at most.

The men I was sent to assassinate were always like El Alfa. Old, fat, and evil as fuck. But this one—he was just a boy. I had to control myself, or my emotions would bubble up to the surface. The thought reverberated in my head.

Control yourself.

I examined the gun, stretching out the seconds he gave me before I had to do anything. A Glock, the black metal dull in the dim light.

My eyes flicked up to El Alfa. Could I shoot him right now? I hadn’t thought an opportunity would come up so quickly. Yet here I was, holding a gun, with my target standing right in front of me.

No. I couldn’t. There were four men standing next to us, apart from El Alfa himself. I could probably take out two of them, but they had been trained well—they were standing apart from each other so that there was no way to get them at the same time. Two more men driving the SUVs, three more in the backs of the cars. And that’s not even counting club security. This was El Alfa’s club, after all. A volley of gunfire would bring them running. And the cars were blocking the only exit from the alley—

“Well?”

I looked up at El Alfa. I’d already stalled too long. It was impossible now. His beady eyes bored into mine, daring me to refuse him. Goddammit. I had a gun in my hand, for Chrissakes. I could shoot him in the face and then what? I’d be killed, and the two girls would get whisked off to God knows where, and the raid would be shot. No. I had to do this.

“Thanks for trusting me,” I said with a smirk that hurt my face. I cocked the gun as I stepped behind the sobbing boy. I couldn’t save him. Couldn’t save him.

I lifted the gun up to aim it at the poor kid’s head. From the SUV, I heard a muffled pounding, but I didn’t lift my head to look at it. If I saw either of the girls, I wouldn’t be able to do it. For all of my rational thoughts, I couldn’t help but feel a shudder run through my spine.

Fuck you, Ten
, I thought. Fuck you for sitting in your office and giving orders that you would never have to carry out yourself. Fuck you for all of this.

Control. Take control.

The barrel of the gun pressed against the base of his skull. I would make it quick.

He’s just a boy.

I shoved down the feeling that threatened to sting the backs of my eyes. I shut it down and locked it away. There was only the gun and the kid, and the darkness swirling up inside me.

It always came when I killed, this dark feeling. It took me over, like a deep instinct I never had to be taught. Lots of people know how to kill, but when the time comes, they freeze. I’d spent my whole life training myself not to freeze. Now, as the darkness swept through my body, my arm, my fingers, I let it come and drive away the empty terror I felt at killing an innocent.

My body relaxed. I didn’t shake. This bullet needed to be perfect if I wanted to kill him painlessly.

Control yourself.

I did it. God forgive me, I did it, and the world darkened as my finger pulled the trigger. The boy fell, and the back of his head was gone, and his blood was flowing out black onto the street, black like oil. My stomach turned, but I kept control.

Then it was all over, and El Alfa was taking the gun back, and his men were pulling the body away.

I got into the car, waiting for the darkness to loosen its grip around my chest. The echoes of the gunshot rang in my ears as we drove off, and in the back of the SUV Jessica was screaming from behind her gag.

I took a deep breath, but it felt like I wasn’t getting any oxygen. The dark tide that had swept up into me wasn’t ebbing away like it normally did after a kill. And then I realized what she was screaming behind her gag, her voice muffled.

“Monster!” she was screaming, her throat hoarse with sobs.

Monster. Yes, that’s what I am.

I stared hard out of the window at the neon signs passing by and tried not to think about what I had done.

It wasn’t my first kill, true.

But it sure as hell felt like it.

Chapter Fourteen

Jessica

The man with the blue, blue eyes lifted the gun and put it against the back of James’ head. My mouth went dry. I had been kicking against the door of the SUV, but now I stopped. No. He wasn’t going to shoot him. This was all a bad dream. A nightmare. I was going to wake up any second, and then—

Then the gun bucked, and the sound came through the car window. It hit me like a wave, and James fell over,
flopped
over, his head turning to the side as he fell, bloody. I could hear myself screaming through my gag as it happened, and I couldn’t stop.

Then the man who shot him stepped in front of my view. He was looking into the window, right at me, but he didn’t see me. I don’t think he saw anything.

His eyes looked totally blank. Like a dead man’s eyes.

A monster.

And I’d… I’d kissed him.

I’d kissed this man, this killer, this monster. I wanted to throw up. Behind my gag, I could feel the bile rise in my throat. If I threw up now, I’d probably choke and die. Instead, I closed my eyes and pressed my forehead against the glass of the window. I couldn’t stop screaming at the man as he came into the car, and my screams came out like gargled sounds but I couldn’t stop myself. He had killed James.

James. Oh, God. James.

“Let’s go,” the fat man said. The engine roared and I fell back against the side of the door.

I didn’t know where they were taking us, but I knew that wherever it was, I didn’t want to go there.

Chapter Fifteen

Vale

The moon was shining when we reached El Alfa’s estate. In the blue light of the night, the marble gleamed like ice and the palm trees waved dark shadows, their spiked leaves like fingers reaching out to grab us.

I was still thinking about the kid that I’d killed. I’d never killed an innocent before. Never.

My mouth tasted like chalk as I got out of the car. My hands ached from clenching the steering wheel so hard. I wanted to punch something, to get that dark cloud out of my system, but I couldn’t. Not here.

El Alfa snapped his fingers and the men dragged the two girls from out of the backs of the cars. They went in front of us. The one I’d danced with, Jessica—she was the one who struggled the most. She was kicking the whole way, but her friend let herself be pulled along without any protest, like a dog that had been beaten too many times to care about fighting back.

We went up the marble steps behind them, and the huge doors in front opened, spilling out a flood of yellow light from inside.

The girls in white gauze dresses scattered in front of us as we walked. None of them looked up at the girls who were bound and gagged. I wondered how many of them had arrived this way themselves. I wondered how many of them had watched their boyfriends get killed in front of their eyes.

We reached the end of the hallway. There was an opening there, with stairs leading down into the blackness. A dim yellow light flickered at the top of the stairs, lighting only the few top steps. The man holding Jessica stopped at the top, and she looked back at me. There was such pleading in her eyes that it made my body grow hot. I couldn’t break my cover.